Life in the Country. Botany and Books.

Posts Tagged ‘Slightly Foxed’

Simon Dorrell’s “Foxgloves” – a reminder that even in the depths of January there is pleasure in remembering the past, and in looking forward to the coming spring…

Many of you will already be very familiar with the Reader’s Quarterly from niche publisher Slightly Foxed, but for those who aren’t (yet) on their email list, I would like to point you in the direction of the January 2015 newsletter. For much more, please click over to this link: Light Reading

Here’s a teaser:

We don’t know about you but even we perennially cheerful SFers are in need of a little extra help in January, so this month’s newsletter bears one of our favourite spring artworks: the British illustrator Simon Dorrell’s ‘Foxgloves’ from Issue 14. The little fox peering out through the digitalis reminds us that spring will soon come again and with it the longer days and warmer nights, as well as the new spring issue of the quarterly and our first books of the year.

Meantime we thought we’d start the year with an article from our increasingly rich archive of back issues. In the following extract from SF 17, the novelist, essayist and historian Ronald Blythe who, like us, ‘delights in the physical nature of books, their paper, their odour . . . ’ describes the pleasure he gained from inheriting a friend’s library of pocket editions.

When my old friend the artist John Nash died I inherited his books. I imagined him reading them by lamplight, just as I read when I was a boy, the twin wicks faintly waving inside the Swan glass chimney. There they all were, those handsome runs of pocket-size volumes which preceded the 1930s Penguins and the subsequent paperbacks. Some were small-pack books and had gone to the Western Front. Some were hiking books and had gone up mountains. Some were still a bit painty, having gone on landscape expeditions. All showed signs of having had a life far from that in the studio bookcase. All spoke of belonging to a man who, when young, had been a convert to the Open Road.

The creed of the Open Road had been written by George Borrow:There’s night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there’s likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die? (Lavengro, Chapter 25)As Passchendaele approached, John Nash returned his beloved Everyman edition of Borrow to his sweetheart, along with the letters she had sent him, believing that he would not see her or them again.
So here they were, the very same volumes he’d carried with him. I read in their curly endpapers the great promise which good books make. ‘Everyman, I will go with thee, and be thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy side…’

This post should be extremely easy to write, as it is merely meant to be an enthusiastic recommendation of two things.

First and foremost, this stellar memoir by Dodie Smith (I capture the Castle, The Hundred and One Dalmations), detailing with immense good humour her childhood days in Manchester, when she lived with her widowed mother in a series of family homes.

Before reading this book I had come across several excellent and detailed reviews which inspired my search-and-purchase. I shall not attempt to add to their number, but instead will encourage you to follow these links to the several posts which led to this happy acquisition.

I beg you, please do get hold of a copy. If you are feeling miserable, it will cheer you up, if you are feeling ill (as I was when it arrived) it will make you feel better and, if you are already well and happy, it will make you even more so.

Sheer and utter delight from start to finish. I will end as I started. This is a lovely lovely lovely book.

Yes, indeed.

Which leads me to the second recommendation I have for everyone, which is of a bookseller.

Look Back in Love in the original being fairly scarce and rather highly priced when found, the book I have in hand is a beautifully produced reprint from Slightly Foxed Editions, who specialize in (among other things) “pocket hardback reissues of classic memoirs.”

Take a good look at their list of offerings. I’ve read enough of these to be able to say that whoever is searching out these memoirs to republish has a keen eye for an excellent read. Well done, Slightly Foxed! If I’m ever in London my bookish pilgrimage will include their store (either before or after a sure-to-be-costly visit to Persephone – how can one possibly choose?!) to bow down at the source (as it were) of some of the best-chosen and best-produced vintage reprints currently available.

While not exactly cheap – a postpaid copy to Canada set me back a rather sobering £19, or about $35 Canadian dollars – I justified the cost with the thought that I was supporting a most worthwhile enterprise.

My Slightly Foxed edition is a joy to handle and to read, being compact and neatly cloth bound with a handy ribbon marker, a text block of smooth, creamy paper, and a nicely legible font. My only regret is that it does not contain the photographs included in the original edition; I love the inclusion of photos in memoirs as it adds so much to be able to see the characters and places referred to. But Dodie Smith’s words give such a wonderfully clear picture of both people and surroundings that one can envision the scenes perfectly well without visual aids.

I was so very pleased with this first volume of Dodie Smith’s memoirs – which takes her to the age of fourteen – that I have just tracked down and ordered the middle two volumes of the remaining three autobiographical books, Look Back with Mixed Feelings, and Look Back with Astonishment. I had already acquired Look Back with Gratitude, the last of the four, and though I have leafed through it with anticipation I am being stern with myself and will be saving it to read last, to maintain a chronological order.

And here, to further pique your interest (those few of you who haven’t already discovered this gem for yourselves) is a random page scan. Open this book anywhere and similar anecdotes abound. Even out of context, isn’t this a joy?

Header Image

Rudbeckia in September.

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These “Reviews” and Ratings

I am merely a reader, a consumer of books for amusement and personal instruction, not a professional reviewer - and that is indeed a worthy profession, an important literary craft - so these posts are merely meant to be one person's reading responses, not scholarly reviews.

Early on in this blog I began rating the books I talked about on a 1 to 10 scale; it was meant to be a quick way to communicate my personal degree of satisfaction/pleasure (or the opposite) in each reading experience.

To emphasize: These are very personal, completely arbitrary ratings. These are merely meant to be a measure of the book's success in meeting my hopes and expectations as a reader.

5 & higher are what I consider as "keepers", in various degrees. A 10 indicates that I can think of no possible improvement. Ratings under 5 are rare & I struggle with giving those, but in all honesty sometimes feel them appropriate for, again, undeniably arbitrary and very personal reasons.

Each book is rated in its own context, NOT in comparison to the entire range of literature, which would, of course, be an impossible task.